“Disappearance”, “arrest”: where is the writer Boualem Sansal really? The fate of the Franco-Algerian author worries

The fate of the Franco-Algerian author, Boualem Sansal, in the fight against religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism, worries political and literary circles.

“Editions Gallimard (…) express their very deep concern following the arrest of the writer by the Algerian security services and call for (his) immediate release”wrote the publisher in a press release.

Stopped at Algiers airport?

According to several media, including the French weekly Marianne, the 75-year-old writer was arrested on Saturday at Algiers airport, coming from France.

The Algerian government agency APS confirmed a “arrest” from the writer “at Algiers airport”without however giving a date.

No other official information has filtered out on his fate, in a context of tense relations between Paris and Algiers.

For what ?

According to The Worldthe Algerian authorities could have taken his statements to the French media badly Bordersreputed to be far-right, which take up the Moroccan position according to which the country's territory was truncated under French colonization for the benefit of Algeria. It would be a “red line” for Algiers, which could result in the author being accused of“attack on national integrity”.

Thursday evening, President Emmanuel Macron's entourage announced that the latter was “very concerned about (this) disappearance” and specified that “State services are mobilized to clarify his situation”, this was confirmed by a French diplomatic source on Friday.

These events take place in a tense diplomatic context between France and Algeria, after Paris' support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the disputed territory of Western Sahara at the end of July.

The official Algerian press agency APS criticized France on Friday for taking “the defense of a Holocaust denier who calls into question the existence, independence, history, sovereignty and borders of Algeria”qualifying M. Sansal de “useful puppet”.

“His arrest annoys me”

Several French politicians have expressed their concern, notably former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

Among the authors, signs of support are also pouring in, from Frenchman Nicolas Mathieu, speaking of “trap”to the Franco-Moroccan Tahar Ben Jelloun, calling for “release” Boualem Sansal.

“His arrest annoys me. An intellectual's place is around a round table, around a debate of ideas and not in prison”indicated her compatriot Yasmina Khadra.

In The Point, the Franco-Algerian Kamel Daoud denounced the fact that his “brother” either “behind bars, like the whole of Algeria”.

Their publisher Gallimard was banned from the Algiers International Book Fair this fall. Kamel Daoud is also the target of two complaints in Algeria which accuse him, with his psychiatrist wife, of having used the story of a patient to “Houris”novel evoking the civil war in the country, Goncourt Prize (the most prestigious French literary prize) in 2024.

Boualem Sansal is a great voice in contemporary French-speaking literature, author of a work committed against obscurantism and for democracy, without taboos, sometimes caustic.

Suspicions of Islamophobia

Born in 1949 in Theniet El Had to a father of Moroccan origin and a French-educated mother, he began writing at the age of 48 and published his first novel, “The Oath of the Barbarians”two years later. He recounts the rise in power of the fundamentalists which contributed to plunging Algeria into a “black decade” having caused 200,000 deaths between 1992 and 2002.

After a career as a teacher, business manager and senior civil servant, he was dismissed from the Algerian Ministry of Industry in 2003 for his critical position on power.

In 2019, he participated in protests in Algiers that led to the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Among his titles, “The German's Village” (2008), censored in its country of origin, invokes the Shoah, the civil war in Algeria and the life of Algerians in the French suburbs.

In “2084, the end of the world” (2015), he denounces the threat that religious radicalism poses to democracies, by imagining Islamism in power.

Menaces

His warnings of Europe against this danger have earned this claimed atheist strong enmities. And the support of right-wing and far-right intellectuals and media, applauding his statements on a “Islamic order” who would try “to settle in France”.

In Algeria, threats have increased since he went to Israel to receive a literary prize in 2014.

Boualem Sansal tirelessly defends himself against suspicions of Islamophobia. “I have never said anything against Islam that would justify this accusation” more, “what I have never ceased to denounce is the exploitation of Islam for political and social ends”he explained to AFP in 2017.